The quest for the perfect n64 thumbstick.

I'm sure I am not the only one who has gone into madness over n64 thumbstick replacements. Here is a few of my controllers. Other than the hori and one of the green controllers, they are all modded. I used micro's board for the gamecube look alike stick on the blue controller.
I programmed an attiny 24 using micro's original code for the green controller with the gamceube thumbstick(stick and restricter gate came from a gamcube controller that had a cracked pcb).
The lodgenet controller has a board/back shell swap.

Alright fellow members lets see what you got in terms of n64 thumbstick mods.

 

What's wrong with the normal one?

 

I have made some custom wireless controllers based on those crappy "retro-bit „Super Retro 64“ controllers, using a combination of a Playstation thumb stick module and a Gamecube stick cap:

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http://pmod.de/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=2606

But LinusHofmann's steel sticks are looking really promising for original controllers as the ultimate solution:

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http://steelsticks64.com/?p=74

 

I've got a set of four of Micro's GC style kit on my go-to N64 controllers. I get that they're not perfectly original, but I've never personally missed the true N64 style stick.

Never seen the SteelSticks before. They look pretty cool, but I really hope the "early adopters" kit for $125 gets down to some reasonable cost for a production run. What am I gonna do...spend $500 on replacement joysticks for my set of N64 controllers? xD

 

I have 2 of Micro's replacement sticks, they're pretty awesome, but because of the smaller gate, games feel more sensitive and thus slightly harder to play. Trying to play F-Zero X with Micro's stick is well hard. A thumbstick with a longer neck, and a wider gate would make micro's sticks a hell of a lot better.

 

I love your wireless controller mod. It looks like I found an upcoming use for my retrobit wireless controller.

 

My controller fleet looks kinda close to yours.


I love all four of them but only use the steelstick these days.

 

How do the steelsticks actually compare to other options? Are the just like the original, but with less wear? My go-to controllers are the Hori Mini Pads, mostly for the format factor as well as the stick itself.

 

Who can say? He hasn't released them.

I still don't know that metal is the way to go... but at least he doesn't think it's the white plastic part at fault, unlike most. Well, as the main offender, at least.

 

I've just ordered the GC sticks and micro's replacement kit. From the research that I did it seems like these are the best affordable solution these days.

I'm very interested in the SteelStick, but I prefer my N64 as a "party console" and would want to have four of them. They need to come down in price before I could justify such a purchase.

@sanni I really like what you did to the LodgeNet controller.

 

The steelstick pretty much feels the same as a new and lubricated original stick.

Depending on where you live a new old stock original N64 controller will set you back around the same amount of money. So it all depends on how much you play with the N64 since you will probably get a lot more gaming hours out of the steelstick.

If you decide to buy an original stick, you definitely need to open it up and apply some lube, it really helps with the wear. If you get a steelstick you can just install it and play.
I hope the price will fall a little due to streamlining the production process after the initial trial run since I definitely need a few more to play multiplayer games.

In comparison to the other stick replacements I tried, well to be honest even though many complain about how bad the N64 stick is in my opinion it is worlds ahead of those modern analog potentiometers when it comes to precision movement.

Just recently I played a round of the Xbox classic Halo Combat Evolved with the N64 controller, which sounds totally stupid, but the aiming is so much better with the N64 stick compared to the Xbox controller that it's a shame the whole concept of the N64 stick got discarded and replaced by the analog potentiometers and heavy use of deadzones and autoaim to make up for the loss in precision.

Of course there are also a lot of N64 games where it simply doesn't matter that much and that can be played perfectly fine with a Gamecube style stick.

 

Those Steel Sticks look very promising! Looking forward to the final product!

 

very interested in the steel sticks. Unfortunately, they will have to come way down in price before I could ever justify buying one. They'd have to drop to half their current price AT LEAST.

 

Tried that PCB to use a modern pot based stick out of a gamecube

 

Yes. I have 2 of them. They work great. Just a little too sensitive.

 

Have you tried the new PCB for them, it fixes that

 

No. I don't really want to have to buy them again and again when they get updated. The ones I have were bought back at the start of the year

 

this one works fine
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/160655759083?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

You can just re-flash them

 

I could, but there isn't a lot of info available on how to do that for people without a lot of knowledge, like me.